(Re)Imagining Los Angeles:
five psychotopographies in the fiction of Steve Erickson

Abstract

The thesis investigates psychotopography: the dynamic interrelationship of emotions,
landscape, and the individual. Psychotopography suggests an all-encompassing connection
between landscape and emotion and attempts to outline the intricacies of this, subsequently
providing new ways of mapping the landscape, in particular, a re-mapping of emotional and
psychic responses to the urban space. The aim of psychotopography is to create new
understandings of ourselves, the ways in which we interact with the city, and the identities that
arise as a result, through an exploration of the psychotopographic states and tendencies of a
place, as identified in creative processes such as fiction, art and film.
This study is done with particular reference to the landscape of Los Angeles and
individuals relationship with it. Psychotopography is a term specifically used by Los-Angeles
based American novelist Steve Erickson, and therefore the thesis approaches psychotopography
principally through Erickson’s writings, using studies of five psychotopographic states identified in
his work: emotion, happiness, numbers, liquidity and apocalypse. These five main chapters deal
with themes that are significant not only in Erickson’s writings but as part of the experience of Los
Angeles and the surrounding area, and the interrelation between these themes, their motifs and
the notion of psychotopography.
The psychotopography of Erickson’s novels and characters is intricately woven through all
aspects of his writing and therefore the methodology used during the study of Erickson’s writing is
close thematic analysis. This allows a highly detailed and deliberate exploration of both the
mechanics and concepts within Erickson’s fiction.
The thesis will develop the notion of psychotopography both within the novels and the
wider context of the Los Angeles and Southern Californian landscape, going on to suggest how
this notion might be applied to other disciplines and mediums.

Type:

Thesis
(Doctoral)

Title:

(Re)Imagining Los Angeles:
five psychotopographies in the fiction of Steve Erickson